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For further information

The ERC Gender Equality Plan available at:

http://erc.europa.eu/erc_gender_equality_plan

Call for a Study to support ERC monitoring and evaluation strategy (gender aspects)

https://ec.europa.eu/research/participants/portal/page/ideas?callIdentifier=ERC-2013-Support-1 Deadline for submission: 16 January 2013

Guide for applicants at:

http://erc.europa.eu/guide_csa

ERC Calls for proposals available at:

http://erc.europa.eu/callforproposals

ERC National Contact Points National Contact Points (NCPs) have been set up

across Europe by the national governments to provide information and personalised support to applicants

in their native language. The list of NCPs can be found at:

http://erc.europa.eu/ncp

ERC Quarterly Newsletter «Ideas» Keeps you informed about the ERC: its activities, its

presence at events worldwide, and its grantees and their research. To subscribe to the newsletter register at:

http://erc.europa.eu/keep-updated-erc

Information for non-Europan researchers

http://erc.europa.eu/non-european-researchers

Supporting Top Women in Frontier Research

Realising the Gender Equality Plan

2012Call for proposals for a study on “Gender aspects in career structures and career paths”.

> Objectives- Study gender aspects in career structures and paths of male

and female ERC grantees, male and female non-successful ERC applicants as well as the career path of potential applicants that never apply, as a control group. Funding for this study was awarded to the project ERCAREER: “Capturing career paths of ERC grantees and applicants”.

2013 New call for proposals for a study on “The ERC Proposal submission, peer review and gender mainstreaming”.

> Objectives- Study ERC practices and processes in the context of gender

mainstreaming, in particular during the proposal submission and peer review process.

Indicative budget for this call: EUR 200,000 Deadline for submission: 16 January 2013

WorkshopThe ERC Gender Balance Working Group will organise a workshop to discuss the diversity of practices and approaches to gender mainstreaming in various European countries.Representatives from national research organisations will be invited to discuss and exchange best practices on policies and approaches aiming at the promotion of wider participation of women researchers and the improvement of success rates.

For further information contact: ERC-MONITORING@ec.europa.eu

EuropeanResearchCouncil

@ERC_Research

bringing great IDEAS to lifehttp://erc.europa.eu

1. Difference in success rates of men and women applicants per country of host institution Starting Grant 2007-2012 (aggregated over all calls; first legal signatories taken into account)

2. Difference in success rates of men and women applicants per country of host institution Advanced Grant 2008-2011 (aggregated over all calls; first legal signatories taken into account)

Men more successful than womenWomen more successful than men

With ten completed calls, around a fifth of the over 3,000 ERC grantees are women with a substantially higher share in the Starting Grant competitions with 24% women grantees, compared to 12% in the Advanced Grant competitions. These still relatively low shares are partly due to the lower proportion of women applying to each of the two grant schemes, with an average of 29% in the Starting Grants and 14% in the Advanced Grants. Broadly speaking, these ratios also reflect the proportion of women in research careers in Europe. (See tables 1 and 2)In parallel, the ERC is continuously working towards achieving gender balance in the composition of its evaluation panels. (See table 3)

On the whole, the relative share of women in panels’ composition, (evaluated) applicants and funded applicants is higher in Social Sciences and Humanities and relatively low in Physical Sciences and Engineering.

The ERC has funded over 3000 researchers so far. Recent data on the composition of ERC teams, gives an additional dimension to the contribution toward gender balance. Following an analysis of 636 mid-term reports, it appears that grantees employ on average around six team members of which some 38% are women. The share of female team members varies significantly across scientific domains with 52% women in Life Sciences, 47% in Social Science and Humanities, and 23% in Physical Science and Engineering. This is a very encouraging sign for future better share of women in research. (See table 4)

3. Share of women panel members, evaluated and funded applicants ERC calls 2007-2012 (AdG2012 grantees not included)

4. Staff gender by project domain

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19% 12% 11% 10% 9% 7% 6% 6% 6% 6% 6% 6% 2% 2% 2% 1% 1% 0% 0% -0,3% -2% -3% -5% -10%

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15% 5% 4% 4% 4% 4% 3% 3% 2% 2% 2% 2% 2% 2% 1% 1% 1% 0,8% 0,6% -0,1% -0,1% -0,5% -1% -1% -2% -4%

The European Research Council

The European Research Council (ERC) was created by the European Commission in February 2007 under the ‘Ideas programme’ of the EU’s Seventh Research Framework Programme (FP7), with a total budget of €7.5 billion (2007-2013). It is the first pan-European funding body supporting investigator-driven frontier research in Europe through open and direct competition.Its main aim is to stimulate scientific excellence in Europe by supporting the very best, truly creative researchers from anywhere in the world, regardless of gender, nationality and age, to identify and explore new opportunities and directions in any field of research. Excellence is the sole selection criterion in the ERC competitions.

ERC Gender Equality Plan

The ERC’s governing body, the Scientific Council, is concerned with gender balance in all phases of the ERC calls and hence set up a Gender Balance Working Group, which in 2010 formulated a Gender Equality Plan.(*) The ERC will continue to keep to its core principle of funding excellence alone, without any quotas.

> Fundamental principle Women and men are equally able to perform excellent frontier

research.

> Aim Take into account and confront structural gender differences, so

that the ERC can fulfil its mission to support top talent in frontier researchers across Europe, irrespective of gender, nationality or age.

> Objectives- Raising awareness about ERC gender policy amongst potential

applicants and improving the gender balance among ERC applicants.

- Identifying and challenging any potential gender bias in the ERC evaluation procedure.

- Achieving gender balance amongst ERC peer reviewers and other relevant ERC decision-making bodies in the medium term.

(*) ERC Gender Equality Plan: http://erc.europa.eu/erc_gender_equality_plan